WereDiggle tree - Arch-Diggle Smash working as intended?

Discussion in 'Realm of the Diggle Gods' started by Mr_Strange, Apr 5, 2012.

  1. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    I've just finished my play-through with a were-diggle character. This is something I've been trying to do for a while now, and I finally sat down, made a plan, and made it work through the whole game. I have a lot of thoughts about the Werediggle tree, and I'll be sharing those. But I have just one immediate concern:

    Arch-Diggle Smash seems totally useless.

    In many ways, the werediggle skill tree is like a weapon tree. That is, it provides a bunch of damage bonuses, spread across several skills. The 7th tier gives access to a special attack, much like the Thibult's Trompement, Norwegian Axenado, etc. But unlike those attacks, Arch-Diggle Smash REPLACES your regular attack, instead of adding on.

    ADS does 6 :dmg_blast: 10 :dmg_piercing:, which would be a great damage bonus for one attack. But 16 damage on its own is pretty pathetic by the time you get this skill. In fact, it's downright bad. The full werediggle tree gives 6 :dmg_piercing:, 4 :melee_power:, 1 :dmg_putrefying:, 1 :dmg_toxic: - which is 13 damage in addition to your base. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which 16 damage is better than 13 + base damage. This makes ADS totally useless.

    Was it intended that ADS deal additional damage, instead of being a replacement for your normal damage? If so, I'd love to see that addressed in a patch.
     
  2. dbaumgart

    dbaumgart Art Director Staff Member

    It does scale to Caddishness, but perhaps not amazingly. This was intended to have the attack="1" tag; It'll get added in the next patch.
     
    Exile likes this.
  3. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    Woot! I think I'll make that change locally now, just to experience it ASAP.
     
  4. Jingseng

    Jingseng Member

    personally, I've always been a little disappointed that you couldn't just STAY a diggle as long as you liked... making the choice between diggle mode and eyebrow mode more strategic than "i'm about to open a door" =(
     
  5. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    That would be a massive improvement over the way things are. But there is always a downside too. If you could stay as long as you like, you would require the means to get back to 'Brow mode for casting spells and using other skills that are unavailable as a Diggle.
     
    Exile likes this.
  6. banjo2E

    banjo2E Member

    Make Diggle Form a toggle skill? Like, you can cast it in both forms, and when you cast it it checks to see which form you're in, and converts you to the other one?
     
    OmniNegro likes this.
  7. TheJadedMieu

    TheJadedMieu Member

    Or you could just make the Diggle Form buff removable.
     
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  8. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    My idea for buffing Were Diggle was to simply heal the player 100% when changing from human to diggle. That would make me really eager to switch back and forth!
     
  9. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Full heal on switch would mean every ~30 turns you could get a free full heal. That is OP by far, or do you disagree?

    I could see a 50% heal at most before even I would have to say WTF?!? Who bribed them into that?!?!
     
    Exile likes this.
  10. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    transformation lasts 33 turns, with a cool-down of 50 turns.

    I'm actually not sure it would be OP. Werediggle characters come in two types:

    1 - Folks who never put points into it, and just use it to help get through level 1. (It's much better than a weapon tree for this!)
    2 - Folks who build their whole playstyle around it.

    For #1 folks, the free heal comes with a significant cost - the inability to use ANY OTHER SKILLS for 33 turns. No teleports, spells, lose all your passive bonuses - that's a pretty steep cost. Yes, it makes it easy to "go up stairs, wait until healed, come back down" - but that's actually a good thing IMO.

    For #2 folks, fighting as a were-diggle has always been hard specifically because you don't have any heals - and can't access any heals (since you have no skills.) This is why werediggles often run alchemy as a seconday, so that they can have healing potions. Making the transformation itself heal would be awesome - because you can't use it while in diggle form already, so it creates an interesting tension... do I switch to diggle form (the whole point of my build!) and kick ass, or do I fight as a weak human for a bit, take the hits, then switch and finish them off before my health is out again?

    If a full heal on transform is too strong, as determined by testing, it's easy to adjust that value to a number that feels right. 50% would still be pretty cool.
     
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  11. Jingseng

    Jingseng Member

    A removable buff would make the matter simple, as per the new set of expansion skills (plutonic fist, etc.)

    Personally, I feel a heal is excessive - you already have the dynamic of Brow = skills+spells, Diggle = Buff+diggle skills. That's already presents the tactical paradigm for choosing - adding a heal is unnecessary, especially when in later levels, that heal is 50-100+ hp. That exceeds just about every skill (crystal psychic healing is 36hp) and food (deep omlette is 64 hp over time).

    Keep in mind, 33 and 50 are both very short; and that with 7 skill slots, the issue of "what do I take for heals, what do I take for escape, etc." is important - giving a free heal in a skill that creates the dilemma in the first place... reduces tension overall.

    At most, I would suggest a heal that covers the loss of the buff - the burliness reduction, such that the player is assured they will not die from switching back. It would be better to enhance healing rate by a point or two in diggle form than outright heal, especially heal on transformation into brow form which can use other healing skills anyway...
     
  12. Mr_Strange

    Mr_Strange Member

    I don't believe there is an tactical paradigm - either your human form is stronger (because of your skills + spells) and you have no reason to eneter Diggle form (in which case a heal might be just the incentive you need) or your build is focused on assisting your Diggle form, in which case you have few or no skills/spells in Human form in which case you're just transforming as much as possible - still not a choice, and wanting to save it for a heal creates a tactical reason to delay the transformation.

    If we can agree that Were-Diggle is a weak skill line - that what you give up is not worth what you get, then the proper discussion to have is "what do we add to the line to make it better?" Adding a heal makes it better - quibbling over the amount of the heal is just tuning.
     
    OmniNegro likes this.
  13. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    How to do this? I cannot into files and modifications. ^^
    And i would really like to use that skill with my actual character, at least once properly - since him does 120+ damage for attack, the smash as it is is pretty useless. So... would it corrupt the save data?
     
  14. Frelus

    Frelus Member

    The change is already done.
    If you want to mod the gamefiles directly (not using a typical mod), go to your steam directory/Steamapps/Common/Dungeons of Dredmor/
    and then game, expansion1 or expansion2
    for the basegame/RotDG/YHTNTEP
     
  15. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    I don't have the YHTNTEP since i'm playing a melee character for several months and i don't want to download it since the death of the lich. Maybe it's a modification from that expansion?
    I have, anyway, modified the skillDB of the main game, adding the attack="1" tag. This is safe since the game will change it automatically sooner or later?
    And maybe it also for this that my diggle plague doesn't pop on enemies automatically, and why i cannot create more spores anymore.
     
  16. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    I still don't understand why my werediggles have the Diggle Plague as a spell (0:mana:) and not a chanceonhit/chanceofbeinghit proc.
    I'm running the game from steam, and I have the last patch; in the xml the skill seems fine (with the procs as they should be), but in the game I never see the debuff popping up.